How Can I Describe it?
by KimDavenport
Summary: The darkness; the purest dark I had ever seen, like, the night sky if it had no stars?...Bree and Mr. Davenport share a secret mission; to rescue their sixth family member from the prison of time. No one else in their family knows, no one else even remembers. It's better that way, to keep everyone sane. Now, it's all up to them. One-shot.


Time was rushing forward at me like little arrows of metaphorical thoughts. Lights were in the distance, but I was always surrounded by darkness. The moment I reached the pinpricks of warm, yellow glow, they always seemed to jump back away from me; as if they were afraid.

I tried to enjoy the feeling of my weightless body. I wanted to be able to describe it accurately when I got back. I needed to, if Mr. Davenport ever wanted to finished his experiment. The problem was, floating through eternal darkness was a difficult thing to feel or describe. It was nothing like I had ever experienced before, so I had nothing to compare it to. It was surrounding me now, and I could feel, hear, and sense it. But I couldn't explain it. I couldn't describe it.

Still, I tried.

The darkness; the purest dark I had ever seen, like, the night sky if it had no stars? No, that wasn't right. The darkness didn't press into me or feel intimidating or inky. I was able to see it, and yet I couldn't see anything. It was almost like I was looking at those plain black canvases they would show in museums and try to pass off as 'modern art.' Yeah, that was it! It was like a well-lighted black canvas. It was the purest black, but somehow, it wasn't _dark_.

And all those pinpricks, those were just tiny lights in the distance. Nothing really special about them when you looked at them, but Bree was smart enough to know better. She knew each pinprick represented an entire culture, history, and heritage. Hundreds of people and traditions, condensed into a single prick of light.

Now that Bree had those descriptions solid in her head, she tried to describe to herself the feeling she felt rushing through it all. She could tell she was moving forward very fast, but she couldn't feel anything. No wind blew at her, no sound cued her in to her direction, and worst of all, the lights kept on moving away from her so that she couldn't even use them to see how fast she was going. Eventually, she just gave up. How could one explain _time_? It was just too difficult for the human mind.

Her brother, of course, Chase, wouldn't have let that stop him. If it had been _him_ out here flying through a well-lit blackness, he probably would have used all kind of big words and scientific analogies to explain his surroundings. He'd probably do a much better job then she could. But he couldn't be given that chance. Because he didn't know about her mission. Only she and Mr. Davenport knew. That was a safety precaution to keep them all sane; the other's wouldn't be able to handle the truth.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a large ball of light rushed up before and engulfed her in its brightness. Bree let out a bloodcurdling scream which sounded muffled at first, but slowly grew clearer and clearer. She shut her eyes tightly against the bright glow and continued to scream.

"Bree! Bree! Calm down! You're okay!" Mr. Davenport's voice was right beside her, and the comfort of his presence calmed Bree down enough so that she was able to open her eyes and close her mouth.

She was back in the lab, sitting on the floor of her capsule.

"Sorry Mr. Davenport," she said sheepishly, getting to her feet. "I don't think I'll ever be able to get used to that ending part."

"What was the withdrawal experience like? Did you see anything different? Can you describe it for me?"

Bree thought carefully back to her time in the outer dimension.

"It was like…a big ball of brightness suddenly came up upon me and I fell into it. I was moving forward, and the lights kept moving away from me for a long time—although I guess it wasn't really any time at all-anyway, I was flying along, and suddenly one of the lights stopped moving away and I just fell into it and…and now I'm here." she ended lamely. Gosh, she wished she could come up with some better way to describe it to her genius dad. She needed to help him in whatever way she could, and she really wanted to. Descriptions just weren't really her thing.

Mr. Davenport shook his head a second, lost in thought. Probably trying to decipher Bree's less-then-scientific description, and then put it into a context that would be easier for him to understand. Finally, he nodded at her.

"You had a good session, and things seem to be keeping on track. I hope to finish this up within our original time frame."

Bree nodded. This was good news.

"How far did I go?"

"To the late 1400s. It's hard to pinpoint your destination exactly, but at least your returns are relatively easy to plot."

"Whoa, all the way back then? It didn't seem to take very long at all!"

"That's because it didn't," said her father, a bit of laughter in his eyes.

Bree shook her head violently. "Time travel is confusing. I'm going to bed."

"That's a good idea. I'll keep you updated on developments. Remember; don't tell anyone anything about this."

Bree nodded and made her way up to the living room, leaving Mr. Davenport to scramble around looking over his calculations and checking his equations.

The colorful upstairs was a bit of a shock to her brain after the blackness of time and the dull silver-and-blue soundings of the lab. The constant hum of the refrigerator, the clanging of Tasha cooking dinner, and the click of the video game controllers as her brothers Chase and Adam played together made her ears hurt after the complete silence she had grown accustomed to on her trip.

"Hey sweetie, how are you? You look tired!" exclaimed Tasha, looking up from the pot she was stirring a white mixture in. Chase and Adam made no acknowledgement to their sister, but Bree knew that was simply because they were too caught up in the flashes and bangs of the video game world to realize anything about their surroundings.

"Well, you know Mr. Davenport; his training sessions are always intense. I think I'm going to go take a nap before dinner. Is that alright?"

Tasha smiled. "Of course sweetie! I'll come wake you before we sit down to eat. Should be about an hour."

"Plenty of time for a quick nap," said Bree, skipping her way up the staircase.

She hated lying to her family, but she felt it was for the best. Mr. Davenport had had to lie to his own wife every day for the past three years. She could manage it if it meant they would both one day be able to tell the truth. The _whole_ truth.

As soon as Bree opened the door to her bedroom, she was welcomed with a warm feeling and a soft scent of lemon. Her walls were a light, peachy color, and her floor was covered in a plush grey carpet. The door she entered through was one of two on this side of the room; the other led to a small but reasonable walk-in closet. To her right was the door her bathroom and a desk where she could read and do homework. Straight across from her were three large windows, which offered her a wide view of the Mission Creek neighborhood. To her left, her soft bed covered in pink sheets called to her invitingly. She turned down their invitation, however. At least for a few minutes. Instead, she reached under her bed and pulled back the carpet. Under the carpet her floor was made up of dark wood panels. They were nice, and could be easily loosened with the proper tools. She pulled back three of them, revealing a small nook in the floor. Inside was a medium-sized wooden box, painted yellow and covered with drawn and abstract designs.

Bree had uprooted these floor panels three years ago to make room for this box, and every night she pulled it out and examined it to make sure she would never forget. She and Mr. Davenport were the only two in the family that knew, and they had to do their best to keep hope alive. Chase and Adam and Tasha were completely oblivious. Bree had to make up for their ignorance by making sure she herself would never forget anything.

Slowly, Bree opened the box and examined the contents. They were all Mr. Davenport had let her keep after the incident. She was sure he had a box of his own to keep his memories alive, but everything else had had to be destroyed.

The box's contents was enough, though. It brought back times from long ago and made them seem like they had only happened yesterday.

At the very top of the box there was half a friendship necklace. It read "be frie" on the front. When held to its counterpart, she knew, it would form a perfect circle and spell "best friends." She laughed to herself as she remembered the other owner's reluctance to wear his half.

"It's so girly!" he complained when she had given it to him. "I can't be seen in that!" Still, she knew he always kept it with him. He had to have, because when she and Mr. Davenport had cleaned out his things, there had been no sign of his half of the necklace. Bree set the necklace carefully aside.

The second item in the box was a simple t-shirt. It read "stay cool" on the front and showed a picture of an ice cube in sunglasses. Another inner laugh. He had always worn the dorkiest shirts, and never minded when people made fun of him for it.

The third and forth items looked very similar to Bree, but she knew that if he had been here he would have been quite offended to hear her say that. They were both action figures from some comic books, but she didn't know which ones, or whom they were supposed to represent. Still, they had been some of his favorite decorations in his room when he was here, so she had kept them in remembrance.

Next was a stack of photos. Tasha had always loved taking family photos, for which Bree was grateful. There was no way she could forget what he looked like, even though all of them had changed a great deal in three years; and she assumed he would have too. Every time she pulled out these photos, though, the smiling faces of her beloved family looked exactly the same as they had the night before. Mr. Davenport and Tasha held each other close in each of the photos, the affection they felt for each other clear in every one. Adam always had the same goofy grin on his face, and his eyes were shining with laughter. Chase had an air of intelligence to his posture, but he always accompanied it with a cheerful grin. Bree liked to think of herself as dignified in the poses she struck for family photos, but if she was being honest, she often turned out looking goofier then Adam. Finally, their family was completed with a very short, and very happy looking teenage boy. His smile always reached his eyes, and his stance said that he thought he was a lady's man, even if he really wasn't. His pure heart and kindness didn't show through in the photographs, but it was there all the same.

Bree took a deep breath as she examined this last person. "I'm coming to save you," she whispered quietly to the photograph. She really wasn't a crazy person thinking a picture could understand her. It was more of a reminder to herself of her duty to the last man in the photograph. The man she had to save. The sixth member of their beautiful family. Somewhere, lost in time, Leo Dooley was waiting to be rescued.


End file.
